Missing most of its sparkles and also a little red rose at the bottom if I'm remembering right. Modern Barbie's boobs are smaller so some scotch tape is needed to hold it on, but Amanda thinks this dress totally rocks!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A classic
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Oops, I lied.
in line for Soarin' over California. One of my favorite rides.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
One more
iphone. I'm dragging my real camera around too. You may see some of
those pics later.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A stop for lunch
great if all restaurants had big old toy stores at the entrance? And
when I say great, I mean painful.
Disneyland, here we come!
behind. Finally in the Eurovan, we quickly discovered the a/c wasn't
working.
Umm, it's a long drive and it's HOT. We visited the VW dealer, who,
told us a few hours later that they wouldn't be able to get the
necessary part until Tuesday. Oh and it will cost around $1850. Yay!
While Scott was at the shop, I was searching around for a mini-van to
rent. Trying to rent a mini-van at the last minute is not as easy as I
expected. Sold out! We did find an SUV for about $700 but then Scott
thought about his truck. Scott's mom is with us and we've got too much
stuff to fit in either of our cars.
So here we are, in Scott's Dodge Dakota. The girls and I are crammed
into the undersized backseat. That's cherry juice on Alyssa's
forehead, not blood. We're about five hours behind schedule, but we're
on our way!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Blast from the past
In response to my post about the Ding-a-ling sisters, my niece, Courtney, said this:
You totally get to be Farrah.
I swear, every time I am having a really good hair day--I am grateful that I took your advice when I went to the hairstylist. You were the one who told me to make sure I looked really cute, dressed nice and actually did my hair before my appointment with a new stylist so she would be sure to give me a cute, sassy do. I took to heart that warning that if I showed up frumpy looking at a salon, I just might leave looking even frumpier.
Now that I'm thinking about it...was that actual personal advice that you gave to ME, or was that a blog post? I take these things very personally.
Anyway. Love your hair, love your blog, love-love-love it!!!
Thanks, Courtney! So my first thought was really? I gave hair advice? Good hair advice? I thought about it for a bit and then it started to come back to me... I couldn't remember exactly but vaguely recalled that it had something to do with an embarassing story, as usual. Since I don't throw anything away, within moments, a quick email search turned up the letter that follows. To answer your question, Courtney, it was personal advice... well sort of... it was written just for you... the fact that you turned my embarassing story into words of wisdom well, go Courtney.
I was cracking up at how much my descriptions of almost two-year-old Amanda reminded me of almost seven-year-old Amanda. Her flair for dramatic story-telling started long ago, it seems. (Maybe she got that from you, Courtney.) When I noticed that I'd written the letter exactly five years ago yesterday. I decided, why not? I'm positing it. So here's a slightly edited version of the letter I wrote to my niece when she was in Kansas City. The photo is Amanda in my mom's yard, at almost two.
You totally get to be Farrah.
I swear, every time I am having a really good hair day--I am grateful that I took your advice when I went to the hairstylist. You were the one who told me to make sure I looked really cute, dressed nice and actually did my hair before my appointment with a new stylist so she would be sure to give me a cute, sassy do. I took to heart that warning that if I showed up frumpy looking at a salon, I just might leave looking even frumpier.
Now that I'm thinking about it...was that actual personal advice that you gave to ME, or was that a blog post? I take these things very personally.
Anyway. Love your hair, love your blog, love-love-love it!!!
Thanks, Courtney! So my first thought was really? I gave hair advice? Good hair advice? I thought about it for a bit and then it started to come back to me... I couldn't remember exactly but vaguely recalled that it had something to do with an embarassing story, as usual. Since I don't throw anything away, within moments, a quick email search turned up the letter that follows. To answer your question, Courtney, it was personal advice... well sort of... it was written just for you... the fact that you turned my embarassing story into words of wisdom well, go Courtney.
I was cracking up at how much my descriptions of almost two-year-old Amanda reminded me of almost seven-year-old Amanda. Her flair for dramatic story-telling started long ago, it seems. (Maybe she got that from you, Courtney.) When I noticed that I'd written the letter exactly five years ago yesterday. I decided, why not? I'm positing it. So here's a slightly edited version of the letter I wrote to my niece when she was in Kansas City. The photo is Amanda in my mom's yard, at almost two.
July 14, 2004
Dear Courtney,
I know, I know...you didn’t really expect me to finally come through with an actual letter after that last one, did you? Well here I am. How is life in Kansas City? Are you having fun? I think it’s so cool that you’re doing this! Did I already tell you I’m proud of you? Well I am. I sure hope you’re feeling better after your car accident. Let me tell you that hearing you’d been in an accident scared me just about half out of my mind. Like I told your mom, I only started breathing again after I heard you were okay and now that I have a kid of my own I’m trying to imagine how you can ever send your children out into the world without first wrapping them in a giant roll of bubble wrap. But thankfully, you’re okay...life goes on and you just can’t worry about this kind of stuff or you’ll go crazy.
So on to less scary topics, I can’t believe how lucky you are to have a guy in your building who will make you cappuccinos or whatever for $1. What a deal! Especially since you don’t even have to leave home. Scott makes the occasional mocha or frappuccino for me, but not nearly as often as he used to. And I’m still slightly traumatized over a somewhat recent coffee-buying incident. It was after the last time I got my haircut - and I was feeling very hip & cool (please note that I rarely feel this way in real life, but I read once that hairdressers will sometimes take their queue from how you're dressed, so I always try to dress well for my hair appointments because I have this secret fear that I will walk in dressed how I normally do and the hairdresser will make this immediate judgment, "Hmm... dresses like a geek so I will give her the geek haircut.") Anyway so I'm dressed in my best attempt to look cute and my haircut turns out cute (see, it works!) so I'm attempting to act like I'm hip & cool in real life and I walk out of the salon and go next door to this coffee place, Peets, where your mom and I used to go all the time during lunch when she worked in San Ramon.
There’s a very long line, which is okay because it gives me time to practice being hip & cool. Finally I order their version of a mocha frappuccino (a mocha freddo, but I probably don’t have to tell you that) and the guy piles it high with whipped cream and then hands it to me without a lid or a straw, both of which, I need desperately for the car trip home. The straw container is empty so I ask the guy at the counter for a straw and while I'm waiting I see that all of the lids are flat, which, as you might guess, is not going to work with the 2 1/2 inches of whipped cream, so I attempt to drink enough of the freddo so that I can get a lid on. Let me tell you, it's kind of hard to drink a full one of these things without a straw and still maintain the hip & cool charade. I end up with whipped cream all over my nose and can actually feel the hip & coolness rapidly draining from my body.
When I try to put the lid on I discover that I haven’t drunk quite enough of the freddo so it spills down the side of the cup and all over my hand forcing me to fumble for napkins, and even then, the lid doesn't fit. Can you explain to me how it can be so hard to find a lid that fits when you’re in a hurry at a coffee place?
And to think that I roll my eyes when Scott yells from the kitchen that he can't find the correct lid for the correct random Tupperware container of which there are approximately 50 zillion... "Where's the lid for the white bowl with three sections?" Yes, I know there are 50 zillion possibilities, but I still feel the need to be kind of snotty when I reply, "Umm... probably in the LID Drawer, where we keep ALL of the lids. It’s the hot pink one with the round handle thingy." And again I roll my eyes. DUH!
It’s been a really long time since I’ve taken a math class so I’m not sure how to figure out the number of possible combinations you would have to try before you just accidentally happened across the correct lid, but it reminds me of one of those pop quizzes your Grandpa Nelson was always throwing at me when I was a kid...There are 26 sheep and one dies... or, I guess the one that applies here is the one about getting dressed in the dark. If your drawer contains 10 black socks and 12 blue socks, how many socks do you have to take out of the drawer before you know you have a matching set? So if you have 50 zillion containers and 50 zillion lids, how many do you have to try...?
Yes, it humbles me when there are only three sizes of lids and three sizes of containers at the coffee place and I still can't make any of them fit my drink. I fumble for what feels like an eternity, wondering if anyone in the very long line is watching me and snickering thinking, hmm... I can't believe I thought she was hip & cool.
I never do get the lid to fit, but I want out of this place badly, so I head for the exit and as I open the door, a hard wind hits me and in an instant my hip & cool hair style is gone and I know I'll never get it to look hip & cool again despite the overpriced hair products I have purchased in my hopefulness. My hair is whipping around my head wildly now and it briefly impairs my vision. I stumble slightly trying to move out of the way for someone and spill the freddo down my leg... And this is why the idea of $1 coffee drinks without leaving home sounds like such a dream come true to me.
Anyway, we had a good time at your grandma’s house last week. After spending four days in Berryessa during which her cousins attempted to teach Amanda how to dance the “cool” way, we headed to Grandma’s where we listened to a chicken-dance polka CD pretty much non-stop for almost a week. Please note that though, as I have already explained, I am not cool, I have a fairly good idea that flapping your wings like a chicken is probably not cool and I’m thinking that polka music is most definitely not at all cool or even remotely hip. Please tell me if I’m wrong.
The week started out with Mom noting that it seemed like maybe Amanda was ready to switch from sippy cups to regular cups. Amanda spent the rest of the week making her eat her words. Constant spillage goin' on... let me tell you, and this was our drinks not Amanda's...cuz no way do I think she's ready for a grown-up cup. But she was forever asking for a "Sipppppp!" from ours. Yes, she has definitely mastered the art of drinking from a cup. But she also enjoys washing her hands in cups... submerging spoons or whatever happens to be available into cups... splashing happily in cups... watching the liquid flow out of the cups as she pours them onto the floor... and then watching us clean up the wet mess from the cups... frequently somehow managing to find more liquid from the cups to spill on the newly-dried floor.
Grandma also caught her dipping her hands into Hannah's water bowl and then licking her fingers... and later dipping her toothbrush into Hannah's water when she was ready to brush. Yes, I know...Gross! Grandma agreed that it was gross too but also immediately commented that she was worried about Hannah’s water being contaminated! I’m not totally sure that she was kidding either.
Amanda is really starting to talk more and more too. I’ll try to teach her how to say “Courtney” by the time you get home. She imitates everything we say and comes up with the occasional 3 or 4 word sentences. This still floors me every time! She says "Where did cat go?" or "Daddy is asleep." and I just fall all over myself thinking how unbelievable it is that she's talking like this when we only brought her home from the hospital for the first time like, you know, three days ago or something. How can she be almost TWO?
Unfortunately her new favorite phrase is "Oh gawd." After all my years at El Sobrante Christian School learning how awful it is to say this, I still cringe...and I spell it differently so I can feel less horrible but it doesn’t work. Apparently it’s something she must have picked up last week from either Mom or me. (Oooops!) And now she walks around saying it as if she's raging with emotion when anything even slightly bad happens. Like I'll swoop down to move my soda out of her reach a millisecond before she gets it... or the toy she's playing with falls to some place out of her reach and suddenly she's crying like a little old lady, "Oh gawd...oh GAWWWWWWWWWWD!" as if it's the most horrible thing that's ever happened to her. And I keep trying to suggest, “Oh boy” or “Oh gosh” as a replacement.
She also walks around repeating phrases over and over again. It makes me giggle because she reminds me of a tiny little actress running her lines...and she changes things up slightly each time. Yesterday when I thought I heard his truck pull up, I asked her if Daddy was home and then immediately answered my own question...No... And for several minutes she repeated the scene with different tones and timing..."Is Daddy home? No? Is --- Daddy --- home? No! Is Daddy --- Home! Noooo---oooooo!"
I’m enclosing a few pictures of Amanda watering Grandma’s plants (and herself) last week. Grandma always makes it sound like it’s such hard work. Maybe if she stripped down to her underwear she’d have as much fun as Amanda did. Got a good mental picture going? Okay, now I have to run. Thanks for your letters. You’re a sweetie!
Love you lots,
Aunt Dione
Dear Courtney,
I know, I know...you didn’t really expect me to finally come through with an actual letter after that last one, did you? Well here I am. How is life in Kansas City? Are you having fun? I think it’s so cool that you’re doing this! Did I already tell you I’m proud of you? Well I am. I sure hope you’re feeling better after your car accident. Let me tell you that hearing you’d been in an accident scared me just about half out of my mind. Like I told your mom, I only started breathing again after I heard you were okay and now that I have a kid of my own I’m trying to imagine how you can ever send your children out into the world without first wrapping them in a giant roll of bubble wrap. But thankfully, you’re okay...life goes on and you just can’t worry about this kind of stuff or you’ll go crazy.
So on to less scary topics, I can’t believe how lucky you are to have a guy in your building who will make you cappuccinos or whatever for $1. What a deal! Especially since you don’t even have to leave home. Scott makes the occasional mocha or frappuccino for me, but not nearly as often as he used to. And I’m still slightly traumatized over a somewhat recent coffee-buying incident. It was after the last time I got my haircut - and I was feeling very hip & cool (please note that I rarely feel this way in real life, but I read once that hairdressers will sometimes take their queue from how you're dressed, so I always try to dress well for my hair appointments because I have this secret fear that I will walk in dressed how I normally do and the hairdresser will make this immediate judgment, "Hmm... dresses like a geek so I will give her the geek haircut.") Anyway so I'm dressed in my best attempt to look cute and my haircut turns out cute (see, it works!) so I'm attempting to act like I'm hip & cool in real life and I walk out of the salon and go next door to this coffee place, Peets, where your mom and I used to go all the time during lunch when she worked in San Ramon.
There’s a very long line, which is okay because it gives me time to practice being hip & cool. Finally I order their version of a mocha frappuccino (a mocha freddo, but I probably don’t have to tell you that) and the guy piles it high with whipped cream and then hands it to me without a lid or a straw, both of which, I need desperately for the car trip home. The straw container is empty so I ask the guy at the counter for a straw and while I'm waiting I see that all of the lids are flat, which, as you might guess, is not going to work with the 2 1/2 inches of whipped cream, so I attempt to drink enough of the freddo so that I can get a lid on. Let me tell you, it's kind of hard to drink a full one of these things without a straw and still maintain the hip & cool charade. I end up with whipped cream all over my nose and can actually feel the hip & coolness rapidly draining from my body.
When I try to put the lid on I discover that I haven’t drunk quite enough of the freddo so it spills down the side of the cup and all over my hand forcing me to fumble for napkins, and even then, the lid doesn't fit. Can you explain to me how it can be so hard to find a lid that fits when you’re in a hurry at a coffee place?
And to think that I roll my eyes when Scott yells from the kitchen that he can't find the correct lid for the correct random Tupperware container of which there are approximately 50 zillion... "Where's the lid for the white bowl with three sections?" Yes, I know there are 50 zillion possibilities, but I still feel the need to be kind of snotty when I reply, "Umm... probably in the LID Drawer, where we keep ALL of the lids. It’s the hot pink one with the round handle thingy." And again I roll my eyes. DUH!
It’s been a really long time since I’ve taken a math class so I’m not sure how to figure out the number of possible combinations you would have to try before you just accidentally happened across the correct lid, but it reminds me of one of those pop quizzes your Grandpa Nelson was always throwing at me when I was a kid...There are 26 sheep and one dies... or, I guess the one that applies here is the one about getting dressed in the dark. If your drawer contains 10 black socks and 12 blue socks, how many socks do you have to take out of the drawer before you know you have a matching set? So if you have 50 zillion containers and 50 zillion lids, how many do you have to try...?
Yes, it humbles me when there are only three sizes of lids and three sizes of containers at the coffee place and I still can't make any of them fit my drink. I fumble for what feels like an eternity, wondering if anyone in the very long line is watching me and snickering thinking, hmm... I can't believe I thought she was hip & cool.
I never do get the lid to fit, but I want out of this place badly, so I head for the exit and as I open the door, a hard wind hits me and in an instant my hip & cool hair style is gone and I know I'll never get it to look hip & cool again despite the overpriced hair products I have purchased in my hopefulness. My hair is whipping around my head wildly now and it briefly impairs my vision. I stumble slightly trying to move out of the way for someone and spill the freddo down my leg... And this is why the idea of $1 coffee drinks without leaving home sounds like such a dream come true to me.
Anyway, we had a good time at your grandma’s house last week. After spending four days in Berryessa during which her cousins attempted to teach Amanda how to dance the “cool” way, we headed to Grandma’s where we listened to a chicken-dance polka CD pretty much non-stop for almost a week. Please note that though, as I have already explained, I am not cool, I have a fairly good idea that flapping your wings like a chicken is probably not cool and I’m thinking that polka music is most definitely not at all cool or even remotely hip. Please tell me if I’m wrong.
The week started out with Mom noting that it seemed like maybe Amanda was ready to switch from sippy cups to regular cups. Amanda spent the rest of the week making her eat her words. Constant spillage goin' on... let me tell you, and this was our drinks not Amanda's...cuz no way do I think she's ready for a grown-up cup. But she was forever asking for a "Sipppppp!" from ours. Yes, she has definitely mastered the art of drinking from a cup. But she also enjoys washing her hands in cups... submerging spoons or whatever happens to be available into cups... splashing happily in cups... watching the liquid flow out of the cups as she pours them onto the floor... and then watching us clean up the wet mess from the cups... frequently somehow managing to find more liquid from the cups to spill on the newly-dried floor.
Grandma also caught her dipping her hands into Hannah's water bowl and then licking her fingers... and later dipping her toothbrush into Hannah's water when she was ready to brush. Yes, I know...Gross! Grandma agreed that it was gross too but also immediately commented that she was worried about Hannah’s water being contaminated! I’m not totally sure that she was kidding either.
Amanda is really starting to talk more and more too. I’ll try to teach her how to say “Courtney” by the time you get home. She imitates everything we say and comes up with the occasional 3 or 4 word sentences. This still floors me every time! She says "Where did cat go?" or "Daddy is asleep." and I just fall all over myself thinking how unbelievable it is that she's talking like this when we only brought her home from the hospital for the first time like, you know, three days ago or something. How can she be almost TWO?
Unfortunately her new favorite phrase is "Oh gawd." After all my years at El Sobrante Christian School learning how awful it is to say this, I still cringe...and I spell it differently so I can feel less horrible but it doesn’t work. Apparently it’s something she must have picked up last week from either Mom or me. (Oooops!) And now she walks around saying it as if she's raging with emotion when anything even slightly bad happens. Like I'll swoop down to move my soda out of her reach a millisecond before she gets it... or the toy she's playing with falls to some place out of her reach and suddenly she's crying like a little old lady, "Oh gawd...oh GAWWWWWWWWWWD!" as if it's the most horrible thing that's ever happened to her. And I keep trying to suggest, “Oh boy” or “Oh gosh” as a replacement.
She also walks around repeating phrases over and over again. It makes me giggle because she reminds me of a tiny little actress running her lines...and she changes things up slightly each time. Yesterday when I thought I heard his truck pull up, I asked her if Daddy was home and then immediately answered my own question...No... And for several minutes she repeated the scene with different tones and timing..."Is Daddy home? No? Is --- Daddy --- home? No! Is Daddy --- Home! Noooo---oooooo!"
I’m enclosing a few pictures of Amanda watering Grandma’s plants (and herself) last week. Grandma always makes it sound like it’s such hard work. Maybe if she stripped down to her underwear she’d have as much fun as Amanda did. Got a good mental picture going? Okay, now I have to run. Thanks for your letters. You’re a sweetie!
Love you lots,
Aunt Dione
I'm on Shutterfly!
Well, many of you have asked when the results from my big (non) celebrity (non) super-model photo-shoot would show up on the Shutterfly website. The answer is: now! I can't seem to get a direct link but if you go here and then click on "Get inspired" you'll find it. That's me holding the book I made for my brother, Danny's, 40th birthday. Kind of fun that they chose the pages with all those family photos. They also used a couple of quotes. Here's the rest of my interview, in case anyone is interested...
How did you feel while making the books? What was your motivation for making the book?
I love the planning part. It’s so much fun to think about making a gift that you know will make the recipient happy. For my sister’s “Look out Fifty, Here I come!” book, I was inspired by another book in the gallery, “A Drummer Looks at 40." I was really excited about the idea of putting a really positive spin on a milestone birthday that I wasn’t sure she was particularly looking forward to. I wanted her to know how truly amazing we all think she is. That 50 didn’t mean she was old, it just meant she’d had 50 years worth of experiences that turned her into the incredible woman she is now. It can be time-consuming to create a contribution album but it is absolutely a labor of love and even in the most frustrating moments I know it’s one of the most meaningful things I’ll ever do.
How did you feel when you gifted the book?
Presenting the photobook is always my favorite part. That first moment of surprise is the best. It makes every second of hard work worthwhile. I love to watch them flip through the pages. In my experience, people are always extremely moved to receive a photo book. They are amazed that someone took the time and effort for them. My mom always tells me I should add a box of Kleenex to the gift because, more often then not there are tears, and there is always a lot of laughter.
How often do you make photo books?
That’s kind of a tough question to answer because I feel like in some ways, I’m always making photo books, even if I haven’t actually started any in Shutterfly. Most of the time I’m working on at least one book, and usually several, in my head. I make a year-in-review album every year and I give copies to the grandparents for Christmas. I’m currently working on a book about our family traditions, one about my hopes and dreams for my daughters and several others too.
Do you often give photo books as gifts?
Shutterfly photo books are my favorite gifts to give. They’re perfect for any occasion. I’ve made them for wedding showers, baby showers, birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas. I’ve made them as thank you gifts for teachers and I even made an “I’m sorry” album for my mom, to apologize, in a humorous way about all I put her through as a kid.
Why do you make photo books?
There are many reasons I make photo books… the practical ones, of course, like I want a way to get our photos out of boxes or off of my hard drive so that we can look at them and share them with friends and family. I make photo books because as a stay-at-home mom, there are very few things I do that don’t need to be redone within a day or more likely an hour… laundry, housework, meals, baths… but photo books are something that hopefully will stick around for a very long time.
I make photo books because our memories are precious and I want to capture those memories in a meaningful way... not just the big moments, but the little ones. The everyday moments are the ones that I think I’m going to miss the most one day and sometimes photos have the miraculous power to transport me back in time even if only for a second. I make photo books because it reminds me to appreciate all those little moments while I’m right in the middle of them.
I make photo books because I feel like everybody has a story that deserves to be told and I seem to be the designated storyteller in our family. I make photo books because there are some things that need to be said that I’m not sure I’d be able to say in any other way. I make photo books because I have to. Because after making the first one, I became completely hooked and now it’s not really a choice for me, it’s just something I have to do.
I make photo books for a lot of reasons but ultimately it all boils down to this: I make photo books because I want the people in my life to know that they matter to me. There are a million different ways to let people know that, but to me there’s something special and really almost magical about combining words and photos. I love that photo books are tangible… Something that people can hold in their hands and return to again and again. I know it sounds sappy, but my hope is that when people flip through the pages of my photo books they will feel how important they are to me. I make photo books because I want the people I love to know that I love them.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Ding-a-Ling Sisters
For as long as I can remember, my dad called Denise, Darin and I the Ding-a-ling Sisters. My oldest sister, Deni, wasn't wild about the nickname, possibly because she thought it made us sound like... well,ding-a-lings... But I loved the nickname and wore it proudly. Partly because I loved being grouped with my older sisters who I completely idolized, and partly because every now and then my dad would explain how he came up with the nickname.
As the story went, a long time ago there was a TV show that had a group of girls called the "Ding-a-ling Sisters". They were smart and beautiful and funny and whenever they got together they laughed a whole lot. My dad said that's exactly how he saw his daughters, so that's how we became the Ding-a-Ling Sisters.
I never saw the show, of course, so in my growing-up-in-the-70's-brain I imagined the Ding-a-ling Sisters show as kind of a cross between Three's Company and Charlie's Angels. Three beautiful sisters appearing slightly clutzy and dingy, but secretly, sharp as tacks, fighting a life of crime in matching jumpsuits and boots.
I'm not sure what made me think to do it, but the other day I typed "Ding-a-ling Sisters" into the youtube search engine and suddenly there they were! The actual Ding-a-ling Sisters, four of them, not three... and guess what?!? They were wearing matching jumpsuits and boots! They weren't fighting crime though. They were singing and dancing in some comedy routine with Dean Martin. Now I'm sure my dad probably mentioned the singing and dancing thing but I must have forgotten. Anyway, it was kind of cool to actually finally see them as my dad might have seen them. Not sure how he decided they were smart but they were beautiful.
I almost wonder if I made up the smart part. Though it doesn't matter because I've never doubted that my dad thought we were smart and beautiful and my sisters are still the ones who can make me laugh until I cry. We do have the occasional ding-a-ling type moments too... like the time we must have stopped to ask for directions at least three times one night, each time politely thanking the person, rolling up the window and then saying, "Did anybody actually understand what he said?" so I continue to wear the Ding-a-ling title proudly.
I think I like my Three's Company/Charlie's Angels version a little more though than the real show. Sorry, Darin and Deni but I get to be Farrah. I didn't spend my entire 3rd grade year sleeping on pink spongy rollers for nothing. I am so prepared for that part. By the way, my dad also claimed that if it was quiet enough he could hear bells ring when we shook our heads. Lord knows how many hours of my childhood were spent alone in my bedroom shaking my head and straining to hear those bells. (Thanks, Dad.) But please take a moment to picture me, running in slow motion with my smart and beautiful sisters. I'm shaking my bouncy Farrah-hair like a Breck girl and if you're really, really quiet you can hear the faint peal of bells.
As the story went, a long time ago there was a TV show that had a group of girls called the "Ding-a-ling Sisters". They were smart and beautiful and funny and whenever they got together they laughed a whole lot. My dad said that's exactly how he saw his daughters, so that's how we became the Ding-a-Ling Sisters.
I never saw the show, of course, so in my growing-up-in-the-70's-brain I imagined the Ding-a-ling Sisters show as kind of a cross between Three's Company and Charlie's Angels. Three beautiful sisters appearing slightly clutzy and dingy, but secretly, sharp as tacks, fighting a life of crime in matching jumpsuits and boots.
I'm not sure what made me think to do it, but the other day I typed "Ding-a-ling Sisters" into the youtube search engine and suddenly there they were! The actual Ding-a-ling Sisters, four of them, not three... and guess what?!? They were wearing matching jumpsuits and boots! They weren't fighting crime though. They were singing and dancing in some comedy routine with Dean Martin. Now I'm sure my dad probably mentioned the singing and dancing thing but I must have forgotten. Anyway, it was kind of cool to actually finally see them as my dad might have seen them. Not sure how he decided they were smart but they were beautiful.
I almost wonder if I made up the smart part. Though it doesn't matter because I've never doubted that my dad thought we were smart and beautiful and my sisters are still the ones who can make me laugh until I cry. We do have the occasional ding-a-ling type moments too... like the time we must have stopped to ask for directions at least three times one night, each time politely thanking the person, rolling up the window and then saying, "Did anybody actually understand what he said?" so I continue to wear the Ding-a-ling title proudly.
I think I like my Three's Company/Charlie's Angels version a little more though than the real show. Sorry, Darin and Deni but I get to be Farrah. I didn't spend my entire 3rd grade year sleeping on pink spongy rollers for nothing. I am so prepared for that part. By the way, my dad also claimed that if it was quiet enough he could hear bells ring when we shook our heads. Lord knows how many hours of my childhood were spent alone in my bedroom shaking my head and straining to hear those bells. (Thanks, Dad.) But please take a moment to picture me, running in slow motion with my smart and beautiful sisters. I'm shaking my bouncy Farrah-hair like a Breck girl and if you're really, really quiet you can hear the faint peal of bells.
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